


De Profundis

by n_a_feathers



Category: The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Coldflash Week 2017, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, nu52 powers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-16
Updated: 2017-04-16
Packaged: 2018-10-19 15:55:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10643157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n_a_feathers/pseuds/n_a_feathers
Summary: Barry wakes up in the dark, alone.Written for ColdFlash Week 2017 day 3 (forced to work together) and to a lesser extent day 1 (protectiveness).





	

Barry woke up all at once.

 

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. Not in a general way like when he’d fall asleep in the afternoon and wake up in darkness feeling groggy and not know if it was late evening or early morning until he checked a clock. No, his body felt distanced, not quite his own, like his soul had left it behind for a while and come back to find it not fitting right anymore.

 

He opened his eyes but he may as well have kept them closed. There was no light wherever he was.

 

Underneath his back was cold metal, gridded. He could tell because it was cutting into his skin enough to hurt. Whatever he was lying on was at least as long as himself, the surface underneath him extending out beyond his head, arms and feet. His head was slightly elevated by a natural incline. Was he on the floor? Or was it a table?

 

He reached out to see if the surface he was on ended nearby. His hands edged over the grid beneath him, feeling tackiness under his fingers as he went. After only a few inches his fingers ran over a raised bit which then dropped off into nothing. He must be elevated. So some kind of table.

 

He stretched his legs but felt nothing at his feet. He reached above his head and almost immediately his hand knocked against something thin and hard. Some slightly more tentative feeling about and he was able to figure out it was a tap. Behind that was a sink.

 

Barry told himself to stay calm but he couldn’t help putting an image together in his head. He’d seen a table with this kind of configuration before. Down in the morgue. The autopsy tables where they opened up the dead. Most of his work was done on scene but occasionally he’d have to head down to the lower levels where the bodies were kept and processed.

 

It always made him think that at one point it had been his own mother on that table.

 

He didn’t stay down there any longer than he had to.

 

The tackiness of the grid beneath him took on a different significance in light of his discoveries. Once he got thinking about it, he couldn’t stop. He ran hands all over his body, expecting to find a Y-shaped incision on his chest or the horizontal cut across the top of his scalp. Nothing. His body didn’t feel familiar though. He had that same feeling he’d had on waking up, like the two parts of him – mind and body – weren’t synced up. He wasn’t wearing his own clothes either. In fact, he wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. The fabric of his pants wasn’t his usual soft blends. It was scratchy.

 

What was the last thing he remembered? He’d been with Iris, watching them turn on the particle accelerator at STAR Labs. Someone had stolen her purse but he hadn’t been fast enough to catch them. Pretty boy cop had got the guy. Then he’d gone back to his lab, the power had gone out and…

 

And STAR Labs had blown up.

 

Barry had seen the energy shooting up into the sky and then exploding outwards. The light of it… it had been the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Like one of those plasma globes on a massive scale. The liquids in his lab had – but no, that was impossible. Just a remnant of a childhood trauma. The lightning though, arcing down from out of the sky, that must have been real. That was the last thing he remembered.

 

He wasn’t where he’d fallen though, there wasn’t an autopsy table – or any kind of metal table with a sink – in his lab. Had they moved him down to the morgue after they’d found him? It was a longshot but it was the only explanation he could think of to account for his current situation. The explosion must have knocked out the city’s electricity. That would account for the all-pervading darkness around him.

 

Or was it dark? Barry ran his hands over his face again, trying to find some injury that might have affected his eyes. Blindness was a possibility. Until he could find a light switch or a doctor, he wouldn’t know either way.

 

“Hello?” He called into the darkness.

 

No one replied.

 

Barry sat up and swung around until his legs dangled over the edge of the table. Something _pulled_ inside his stomach as he moved, like threads dragged too tight, painful until the feeling suddenly snapped and he was okay again. He took a deep breath and then tentatively lowered one leg off the side, not knowing how far he’d have to go before he’d reach something solid in this all-encompassing darkness.

 

It was a physical relief when his foot touched solid ground roughly where he expected it to be. He slid the rest of the way down. Now that he was standing, he wasn’t sure what to do next. Even if this was the morgue, he’d only been down there a few times. He couldn’t picture the room with any kind of detail in his head. He had no idea what direction the door was in. If he’d been found and put down here, the room was probably relatively safe. But if it had sustained damage during the particle accelerator explosion then there might be rubble or equipment on the floor he could hurt himself on walking around blind.

 

He was debating the merits of moving anyway, hands out in front of him like he was playing blind man’s bluff, hoping not to hit anything dangerous, or crawling along the ground on all fours when he heard what sounded like a loud explosion, muffled by distance.

 

Had the particle accelerator blown again? They’d said it was going to be completely safe.

 

Surely someone would come for him soon.

 

Come to check on his health or come to move him somewhere better. Somewhere with a backup generator hopefully.

 

Any moment, someone would come to the door and explain everything to him.

 

But why had they left him alone to begin with? Where was everyone?

 

Barry’s heart ratcheted up a beat.

 

He reached out blindly, trying to see if there was a wall nearby he could edge along, and sent a tray crashing to the floor with a clatter of metal. That wasn’t good. The floor was now littered with possible dangerous objects, if it hadn’t already been to start with.

 

He startled when a pounding started up close by and only just stopped himself from backing up. He shouldn’t move quickly when he didn’t know what was around him.

 

But someone was outside the room he was in. Someone had come for him.

 

“Lisa!”

 

Or not.

 

The pounding continued. Barry shuffled towards the direction the sound was coming from, not lifting his feet off the ground. He didn’t dare go more than a few paces though, really having no idea what was in the room around him.

 

“Hello?” He said, voice raised but hesitant. “Who’s there?”

 

The pounding stopped and then there was a hissing, cracking sound. Barry was having thoughts of winter, of frozen lakes, when suddenly the darkness shattered inwards.

 

Barry threw up an arm to cover his eyes from the violent onslaught of light. Definitely not blind then. After a moment to acclimatise and a lot of blinking, he lowered his arm and squinted at the newly made entrance to the room.

 

There was a man there. Average height. Dressed in something resembling a prison uniform. His hair was shaved close to the skull.

 

“Coming? Or do you want to stay in this hell hole, Sleeping Beauty?” The man asked.

 

Barry gaped at him. Had he escaped the holding cells? It wasn’t a prison uniform Barry recognised which meant it wasn’t from any of the intrastate penitentiaries.

 

Not for the first time Barry wondered where he was. Was he still even in Missouri anymore? How many days had he been unconscious?

 

“I… I don’t…” Barry trailed off. He didn’t know what to say. “Has the particle accelerator exploded again?”

 

The man looked at him askance.

 

Barry continued, taking a tentative step towards the man. “Where are we? I have to tell my family I’m okay.”

 

“What’s the last thing you remember, kid?” The man asked, stepping into the room. Barry could see him properly now. He was older than Barry, closer to Joe’s age probably. Grey peppered his tightly clipped hair, a widow peak in front. He had a permanent look of suspicious to his brow, intense eyes underneath, and his mouth was drawn tight in a frown.

 

“I was at work… The accelerator exploded…”

 

Barry thought he heard the man mutter something like _probably for the best_ but it made no sense. Nothing made sense. The man raised his voice to a normal level to instruct Barry to follow him and then was ducking back out of the wreckage of the door.

 

Barry had even less of an idea of what was going on now than he’d had when he’d woken up. He shuffled forward and his bare feet contacted cold metal. He looked down. There was a saw resting against his foot. A medical one, like they used to saw through skulls and ribs. Close to that were scalpels, scissors, tweezers, all the tools coroners and surgeons used. There was something he didn’t recognise that looked like secateurs. He could guess what they were used for.

 

There was blood on most of them.

 

He looked back behind him, at the table he’d woken up on. It was an autopsy table. There was blood there too. His blood? But he didn’t feel any pain. He looked down and confirmed that his skin was undamaged. There was blood though, crusty now. Barry brushed it off him in a daze and it flaked away easily. Some stayed, caught on the fine hair of his stomach. He couldn’t do anything about the stains on his pants but that didn’t stop him from rubbing at them, increasingly frantic as his actions produced no result.

 

The stranger had approached him quietly. It was a small surprise to look up and see him standing right in front of him. He took a hold of Barry’s forearms and held him still. His hands were cold.

 

“What’s your name?” He asked gently.

 

“Barry Allen.”

 

One of his hands dropped but the other reached up and took hold of Barry’s elbow. “I’m Leonard Snart. We need to get out of here. Now.”

 

Barry followed meekly as Len led him out of the room.

 

The hallway was a mess. Any idea he’d had about being at the Central City Police Department was quickly squashed; this place had the sterile design of a corporate lab rather than the timeworn art deco stylings of the precinct. There were burn marks on the walls, furniture thrown around in various stages of destruction and puddles of dirty water on the ground. Leonard continued leading Barry to wherever they were going.

 

As they went, they came across more and more people on the ground – unconscious or dead, he wasn’t sure – and Barry was too afraid to ask about it.

 

Heavy footsteps echoed from around the corner in front of them and Leonard pulled Barry behind him protectively, his own hands going out in front of him in a defensive stance. Barry didn’t know what good hand-to-hand combat would do if the people Leonard was defending them against were armed with guns.

 

The ferocity immediately bled from Leonard’s frame when the cause of the noise rounded the corner finally. It was a man, arms and neck covered in angry, mottled scars. He had a young woman slung over his shoulder.

 

“Found her.” The man’s voice was gruff. As he approached them, he asked, “Who’s the stray?”

 

“We’ll do introductions later. There’s no time.”

 

Leonard grabbed Barry’s hand and then they were off again, the man and the unconscious woman over his shoulder taking up the rear. Occasionally they’d come to a door and Leonard would swipe a card against the panel to make it open. It felt like they ran for hours, time stretching out thin, the corridors never-ending, although it was probably only a few minutes. And yet – when they stopped for a moment and Leonard and the other man debated where they were going next, Barry tuning them out effortlessly – Barry’s legs were restless. He wanted to run more. It was a strange feeling, not one he’d ever felt before. Running had always been a necessity in his life: he’d started off running from bullies and nowadays he ran to make it to work on time (who was he kidding? He was almost never on time. He ran so that when he did arrive, Singh wouldn’t be quite as angry with him). But he had never relished running and was glad as soon as it was over.

 

Now he _wanted_ to run. Tingling like electricity danced over his skin. He was bursting with energy that felt too overwhelming for his body to contain. The urge to move was almost painful.

 

He didn’t have time to dwell on the feeling; just as he began to contemplate it, Leonard had a hold of his hand and they were moving again.

 

Barry quickly lost track of the path they were following; everywhere looked the same. But Leonard and the other man seemed to know where they were going and Barry only had to follow where Leonard tugged him. Moving made the restless ache in his legs dim a little.

 

Eventually they reached a door that didn’t open with the card Leonard tried to swipe against it. As he tried it a couple more times just to make sure, Barry noted it wasn’t his face on the ID photo.

 

“Mick.”

 

The scarred man stepped back and pulled Barry with him. The warmth of his hand felt like burning after Leonard’s cold.

 

Leonard approached the door and placed his hands against it. Barry watched in silence as seconds ticked by and nothing seemed to happen. Then a spider web tracery of frost spread out from where Leonard’s hands met the door, quickly overcoming the steel expanse before starting to creep further across the walls, ceiling and floor.

 

The other man – Mick, Leonard had called him – let go of his hold on Barry and stalked forward. Barry tried to rub away the feeling his handprint left behind. Itchy, like sunburn a few days old. Mick squared up in front of the door, unconscious woman still over his shoulder, and punched it.

 

It shattered like glass.

 

Men in army gear stood in a line on the other side, guns raised.

 

Leonard and Mick, bodies suddenly tense like animals who knew they were in the sights of a predator, moved so they were side by side. Barry cowered behind them. When a middle-aged man in uniform strode through the army men, parting them as he went, Mick all but growled at him.

 

His tone was congenial but his expression was sharp as he said, “Mr Snart, Mr Rory, don’t be stupid. Surrender now before we have to hurt you.”

 

“Not going to happen, General,” said Leonard, holding up his hands in mock placation.

 

Mick was less politic. “Screw you, pig!”

 

“Very well.” He turned to the soldiers behind him. “Capture them, alive if you can. If not,” he sneered derisively, “I’m sure we can find more.”

 

As the general waded back into his men and they readied their guns, Mick gently set the woman he’d been carrying down on the floor next to Barry as Leonard covered him. Despite the roughness of his speech and movements, he treated her like she was made of glass. “Look after her,” he ordered before joining Leonard in forming a human barricade in front of them.

 

“Last chance,” the general called out from amidst the soldiers.

 

There were five of the soldiers to every one of them and Barry highly doubted that he and the woman were going to be of much use. Mick and Leonard didn’t reply, just squared up, arms in front of them in that same defensive position Leonard had taken up before. Barry still didn’t think that was a great defence against guns until Mick’s arms suddenly burst into flame up to his shoulders and ice crept up Leonard’s until it looked like he was wearing gauntlets.

 

Barry scrambled backwards, pulling the unconscious woman with him as an afterthought.

 

“What are you?”

 

Mick looked back at him with a manic grin. “We’re the guys who’re gonna get you out of here alive.”

 

It happened quickly after that.

 

Barry could only watch in awe and terror as Leonard and Mick somehow produced ice and flames from their hands and kept the soldiers at bay. Gradually their numbers thinned as more and more bodies ended up littering the floor.

 

The scenes they had passed on their way through the corridors made sense now.

 

Barry just laid on the ground, feeling helpless and cradling the woman Mick had left him with.

 

He had no idea how he’d ended up in this situation. Why was he in what seemed to be a military facility? What could the army possibly want with him? And how were his two fellow escapees doing what they were doing?

 

When had his whole life become a series of unanswerable questions?

 

After a couple of minutes there were only a handful of soldiers left standing in the corridor. The general had retreated entirely.

 

Behind Leonard, Barry saw a soldier – lying on the ground with his lower half frozen – lift his gun and fire. It happened so fast, he couldn’t yell or move towards Leonard or anything. Leonard didn’t see it, he was looking at the last standing soldier, and Mick was too far away and there was nothing he could do and Leonard was going to die and then –

 

Everything slowed.

 

The bullet left the gun. A ring of fire erupted behind it, ballooning out and chasing after it. There was no noise though. Barry watched it all happen like it was in slow motion. The bullet was inching towards Leonard at a snail’s pace but the aim was good. It was headed for his heart. He wouldn’t survive a shot like that. No way.

 

Barry moved to reach out to him and paused in shock. He was moving at his normal speed. He could…

 

Barry pulled himself to standing and ran to the bullet moving incrementally through the air, only half a metre away from Leonard now, and hesitantly reached out a hand. He half expected touching the bullet would shock everything back to normal speed but when his fingers contacted with the warm metal, nothing happened. He pinched it between his thumb and forefinger and examined it close up. There was nothing out of the ordinary about it.

 

He let it drop and as he did so, everything sped back up.

 

The soldier who’d fired the shot gaped at him from his spot on the floor and then he disappeared in a storm of flames. Mick was advancing angrily towards him, arms straight out in front of his body, pouring a constant stream of fire towards the man. He barely even got to scream, the fire was so hot and on him so quickly. Barely.

 

In a matter of seconds all that was left was a charcoal mess on the floor.

 

Leonard decked the last remaining soldier and then it was over.

 

Barry dropped to his knees. The bullet he’d caught dug into his shin. He was shaking all over. He brought his hands up in front of his face but he was seeing multiples. He blinked his eyes a couple of times to bring them into focus but it made no difference. His hands were shaking so fast they blurred like a hummingbird’s wings. He touched them together and felt the buzzing.

 

He looked up at Leonard beseechingly. “What’s wrong with me?”

 

“Welcome to the club, kid,” Mick muttered without an ounce of compassion, moving to pick up the unconscious woman again.

 

Leonard knelt in front of him. “Nothing’s wrong with you, but I don’t have time to explain now. We have to keep going.”

 

Barry wasn’t ready to move yet. When Leonard rose, he stayed where he was. He wanted answers. “Why are you helping me?”

 

Leonard looked less than composed for the first time since he’d busted down the door to Barry’s room. His expression quickly hardened, overtaken by a scowl. “We can leave you here,” he said, “if you’re so upset about it.”

 

Barry scrambled to his feet, hindered briefly by his vibrating hands going through the objects he tried to pull himself up by or steady himself against. “No! Please don’t leave me here.” He clenched his eyes shut and his hands into fists, fingernails digging into his palms, and willed them to stop shaking. Slowly but surely the tingling sensation faded and when he looked down, his hands were back to normal.

 

Leonard was watching him and their eyes met when Barry looked up.

 

“I want to go home.” Leonard remained silent. “Please.”

 

Leonard turned and started walking away. “Come on then.”

 

They continued their trek through the facility and Barry realised it must be huge. They’d come up against pockets of soldiers, especially around the locked doorways that Leonard and Mick busted open, but they were dispatched quickly and efficiently. Guns were no match against their powers. Barry found himself helping out. He used his speed to snatch guns from the soldiers but baulked at physically attacking them.

 

There was the sense that something was chasing them from behind as well but they kept moving ever forward and away from it.

 

At points Barry thought he caught sight of translucent tendrils whipping out, upending soldiers, throwing them across the room. He didn’t know what they were or where they were coming from but it wasn’t weirder than anything else that had happened since he woke up so he let it slide. Leonard and Mick didn’t comment on it so it must be fine.

 

Their eventual exit from the facility they’d been held in was explosive, to say the least. Mick turned and set everything that would catch on fire as they broke out into the open. It was dark out. No way to tell the time.

 

“Barry!” He swung around to look at Leonard. “Take Lisa and get her far away from here. If you can, come back for us.”

 

Barry nodded and then Mick was handing Lisa to him to hold in a bridal carry, swiping some curls off of her face with a surprising gentleness before turning back to take up his place at Leonard’s side.

 

Barry looked down and found himself envying Lisa’s peaceful expression. If only she knew what was going on around her. He hefted her up, securing his hold on her, and then he ran.

 

The scenery blurred together as he ran. They were in the middle of the woods and Barry followed the incline of the ground, looking for a vantage point so he could hopefully orientate himself. He wasn’t even sure if they were still near Central.

 

It was the work of seconds to get tens of kilometres away from any hint of military presence and to find a lookout at the end of a hiking trail. Central twinkled in the distance.

 

He set Lisa down gently and then he ran back the way he’d come.

 

Leonard and Mick were still bombarding the exit from the facility with their powers when he got back. Leonard looked to him when his return caused a gust of wind to rustle the trees and kicked up leaf litter.

 

“Take Mick next,” was all he said before getting back to work.

 

So Barry did as he was hold. He zipped over, grabbed Mick, winced as Mick’s superheated skin and flaming arms scorched him before he reined in his powers, and then ran back to where he’d left Lisa.

 

Mick was looking green around the gills and Barry had a second to sympathise before he headed back for Leonard.

 

He had to take a second to make sure he wasn’t seeing things when he got back. Leonard was in the grip of a muscled giant, the thing pushing him into the ground and sneering into his face. It had to have been a normal man once but standing it would have been at least 3 metres tall now, Leonard looking tiny in its massive fist. It was in a military uniform like the soldiers had worn, with the same close cropped hair they all shared. Corded muscles and bunched veins lined every part of its bared flesh. Wild boar-like tusks protruded from its mouth.

 

It was squeezing slowly as Leonard struggled in its grip. A light frost covered its fist where Leonard was touching it, but his powers must have been out of whack because of pain or oxygen deprivation or god knows what else. He should have been able to freeze the thing’s massive paw and punch it to shards but as it was his struggles were growing feebler and the ice was retreating.

 

Barry didn’t think.

 

Suddenly he was standing under the beast, vibrating hand raised and dug into its chest. It had a moment to look shocked – and Barry thought its expression must mirror his own – before Barry snatched back his hand as if it had been burnt and the life faded from the giant’s eyes.

 

Barry had his wits about him enough to grab Leonard from its now slack grip and run for it before it collapsed on top of them. He took the long way back as Leonard’s ragged breathing evened out and he resumed a semblance of his normal cold calm.

 

Mick was still on his knees when they got back, swiping a meaty fist over his mouth.

 

“That’s some power you got, kid.”

 

Leonard took it a little better, swaying slightly on his feet and looking bewildered for a second but then he quickly pulled himself back together. Barry caught the way he winced as he adjusted his posture to avoid aggravating whatever damage had been done to him. He started off shaky, but by the time he’d finished saying, “Thanks for the lift,” his usual drawl was firmly back in place.

 

Barry wondered if they’d be able to go to a hospital to have him fixed up. Were they fugitives now, on the run?

 

But at least they were free. He wasn’t locked up in some military facility, having god knows what done to him. He assumed he’d been targeted because of these new powers he had. Iris and Joe were going to freak when they saw them.

 

Iris and Joe.

 

And then all at once, he realised he could go home. Suddenly there was nothing he wanted to do more. He just wanted to be back in the home he’d spent half of his childhood in, with his foster father and best friend, eating one of Grandma Esther’s comfort dishes. God, they must be worried sick about him. He’d been gone what? A week, two? Did they even know he was still alive?

 

He hadn’t noticed Leonard and Mick talking amongst themselves during his revelation but they quietened when he moved his attention back to them and announced, “I need to go.”

 

“Barry…” Leonard began.

 

“No,” Barry said before he could say more. “Look, I’m sorry. Thank you for everything you’ve done, but I have to go home. I have to see my family.”

 

“Barry, there’s something you have to kn—”

 

Mick cut him off. “We’re coming.”

 

“What?” Barry and Leonard said in unison. Barry was baffled by the decision but Leonard just looked murderous.

 

“Those bastards’ll be back. You want your family getting hurt, kid?”

 

“No, of course not!”

 

“Then we’re coming,” he stated like that made any sense.

 

“Mick…” A look passed between Leonard and Mick that Barry didn’t understand but eventually Leonard relented with a sigh. They might have things sorted out between them but Barry still had questions.

 

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “You could have left me back there. You don’t know me.”

 

“It doesn’t matter,” Leonard dismissed his question, turning away to check on the unconscious woman.

 

“Yes, it does.” Barry followed him, finding a place to squat where he’d be in Leonard’s line of sight. “Tell me or I’m leaving. You’ve seen what I can do. You can’t stop me.”

 

“I…” Leonard’s expression was pinched, like it physically pained him to say the words. “When they’d take us out of our cages, sometimes Lisa was there… and sometimes you were. The things they did…” He lapsed into silence for a few moments, a haunted look on his face. “We might be criminals but at least we have morals. It wasn’t right.”

 

Barry felt for where the blood had been when he’d woken up. Remembered back to the table he’d been on, caked with the stuff.

 

“But how am I…?”

 

Leonard understood without him having to finish the question. “Your powers probably.”

 

“And Lisa is…?”

 

“My sister,” he said, running a hand through her dirty and tangled hair. “She’s been unconscious since the night of the particle accelerator explosion.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Barry said, feeling like a dick for pushing the issue now.

 

“It is what it is.” Len stood and motioned for Mick to pick up his sister again. “Let’s get going while it’s still dark.”

 

***

It took a few hours to trek back to the suburban outskirts of Central City. Barry offered to run them there but Mick vehemently refused the offer and Leonard just said it was good to be able to walk around freely after so long.

 

There was a slight lightening of the sky to the east when they finally made it to the West house. They’d had to duck behind bushes and buildings to avoid being seen by a couple of early morning joggers but had managed the journey undetected.

 

Barry stood on their porch for the longest time with Leonard, Mick and Lisa in Mick’s arms behind them before building up the courage to knock on the door.

 

Just before it swung open, Barry realised the state he was in. No shirt, no shoes, bloodstained pants and probably covered in dirt, maybe some blood. Leonard and Mick were only slightly better, but the latter was lugging around an unconscious woman over his shoulder. It didn’t scream trustworthy.

 

All those worries bled away the moment the door opened and he saw Joe.

 

He looked like he’d aged 10 years since Barry had last seen him.

 

He blinked a couple of times, eyes more misty every time. “Barr?”

 

“Joe…”

 

Joe rubbed a hand across his mouth, eyes wide and tears about to drop. His voice was disbelieving as he said, “I thought you were dead.”

 

Then he was being enveloped in a hug, crushingly tight like Joe never wanted to let him go again. With no shirt, he felt the tears drop directly onto his bare shoulder and focused on one as it slid down his back. He still felt a little disconnected from it all, like he was in a bit of shock.

 

It wasn’t until Joe pulled away to regard Barry from arm’s length that he seemed to finally notice the other people on his doorstep.

 

“I know you. You’re Leonard Snart.” Leonard’s nod was almost imperceptible. “And you’re Mick Rory. I’ve arrested both of you.”

 

Barry tensed. These men were criminals? And he’d just helped them break out of a secure military facility. But then he remembered that they’d been keeping him there as well and he’d never broke the law. Whatever Leonard and Mick had done in their past, that place hadn’t been fair punishment.

 

“Thank you for bringing my boy home,” Joe said, tears in his eyes. He shook Leonard and Mick’s hands and clapped them on the shoulder. Their stiff, uncertain reactions were almost comical, like they weren’t used to being thanked, especially by a detective.

 

“If you don’t mind, Detective, I think we should probably go inside,” Leonard suggested.

 

Joe seemed to come back to himself at Leonard’s words, quickly looking around the neighbourhood to see if anyone was watching and then gesturing them all inside.

 

Mick lay Lisa out on the couch in that incongruently gentle way he had and then took up a place in front of the fireplace. Leonard went to join him but Barry felt too exhausted from the exertions of the night; he dropped wearily into one of the armchairs.

 

Joe looked at him in awe and Barry squirmed uncomfortably under the attention. “Don’t look at me like that. I haven’t been gone _that_ long.”

 

He noticed Leonard wince.

 

“Barry…” Joe began and the gentle tone of his voice worried Barry. “It’s been 9 months.”

 

Barry huffed out a half laugh and shook his head. “What? No, that can’t be right.”

 

“Barr…”

 

“No.” Barry stood up and paced back and forwards. “You’re joking and it’s not funny.”

 

Nine months… That was impossible. They can’t have had him that long. It was just…

 

Nine months was a long time. Too long.

 

What could happen in nine months?

 

What could they have done to him in nine months?

 

So no, it couldn’t have been that long.

 

He didn’t know why Joe was doing this but he wanted him to stop.

 

Leonard’s cold hand on his elbow made him stop his pacing and realise he was doing that vibrating thing he could do now. Joe had a look of disbelief on his face, verging on horror.

 

Leonard leant in closer and in a small voice said, “It’s September 2014. The particle accelerator exploded 9 months ago.”

 

Barry felt the panic build in his gut. Everything else was numb.

 

It was true.

 

He collapsed back into his chair and just sat there, aware that Joe was talking to Leonard and Mick in a peripheral sort of way as he stared at nothing and used all his energy just to stop himself from flying apart.

 

Joe’s hand on his shoulder brought him back to himself.

 

“Maybe you should take a shower and get some sleep, Barr? I think you need it.”

 

Barry nodded. That did sound like a good idea. He was filthy and in pants that weren’t his own.

 

He looked around the room, only now realising something. “Where’s Iris?”

 

“She’s out for the night,” Joe answered, guiding him out of his chair and slowly towards the stairs.   
“Should be back tomorrow but I can call her?”

 

“No, it’s okay. You’re right. I just need to sleep.”

 

“Your room’s exactly as you left it.”

 

Barry nodded in thanks and made his way upstairs. He entered the bathroom and stripped on auto-pilot, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He stepped back and looked properly.

 

He was leaner, the jut of his bones more apparent now, but he was also wiry with muscle in a way he’d never been before. The body in the mirror didn’t look like his own.

 

He turned on the hot water and stepped underneath, flinching at the pins-and-needles tingling it caused at first. He just stood there under the spray for a while and watched dirt and blood wash down the drain.

 

He looked down at his unblemished skin. Len had guessed that his powers had wiped away whatever the army had done to him. He would never know what he’d been through while he was unconscious.

 

The feeling of powerlessness and frustration welled up in him and then he was punching the wall of the shower, over and over again, and it hurt and soon there was blood on the wall but it wasn’t enough. He screamed for all he was worth but that didn’t make it better.

 

He was stopped by firm arms around him, holding his own against his sides, whispering assurances into his ear as Barry cried himself out.

 

He felt a bit better afterwards until he looked down at his hands and they were without injury, the blood long washed away. He stretched his fingers out and there wasn’t any pain.

 

“Okay now?” Leonard asked, letting him go.

 

Barry nodded because words couldn’t express all he was feeling.

 

Leonard was gone again when he stepped out of the shower and towelled himself off. Clothes – his own clothes – were sitting on the sink. He pulled them on and with his body covered he looked more like himself.

 

He went and laid down in the bed he’d spent his latter childhood in. Someone had closed the curtains against the day for him. The same stupid posters were up on the walls, the chemistry set Joe had got him for Christmas one year on his desk.

 

He fought off sleep for a long time, fearing how long would have passed the next time he woke up. Exhaustion got the better of him eventually and in the next second he was out.

 

*****

 

Barry felt like he’d only slept a second before he was woken by a brightness in his room.

 

He blinked the last whispers of sleep away and looked to where the light was coming from.

 

A woman sat on his desk, looking familiar to him. It took him longer than he’d like to admit before he recognised Lisa’s auburn hair. She was looking good, healthy. Her hair wasn’t greasy and her face wasn’t sickly pale like the woman Mick had been carting around all night.

 

And she was definitely glowing faintly, tendrils of light floating around her.

 

“Hey,” she said.

 

“Hey,” Barry replied, not really sure what else to say.

 

He sat up in bed but hesitated getting any closer to her.

 

Her smile was warm but there was sadness in her eyes as she looked him over. “Thanks for taking care of my boys.”

 

Once again Barry wasn’t quite sure how to reply. “Uh… my pleasure?”

 

“They’re going to need you a little longer.” She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll be able to help out soon.”

 

Between one blink and the next she was gone.

 

Barry stayed in bed for a while, unable to get back to sleep after his visitor, and eventually crept down to the living room. The curtains had been drawn down there as well so it was still dark despite being the middle of the day.

 

They’d put Lisa’s body on the couch and given her the good bedding while Leonard and Mick made do with a blanket each in the much less comfy armchairs. Barry wondered if her astral form appreciated that or if she really didn’t care.

 

Barry hovered at the foot of the stairs, suddenly not so sure about how to procced. This had seemed like a much better idea back in his room.

 

“What’s up, kid?” Leonard’s voice startled him. He hadn’t realised he was awake. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could make out both Leonard and Mick watching him warily. He didn’t blame them. After his breakdown in the shower they probably thought he was a hair’s width from cracking apart completely.

 

Barry meant to say a lot of things but what actually came out was, “Tell me what they did to me.”

 

Leonard pushed down his blanket and sat up straight. “We don’t even know a fraction of it. Sure you want to know?”

 

Barry didn’t take long to make up his mind. Knowing was better than wondering and worrying for the rest of his life. “Yes.”

 

So Leonard told him the things they’d witnessed and experience themselves at the military facility. It wasn’t easy to hear, and most of it was hard to believe when no trace of it was left on his body. Thinking back to the bloody autopsy table made it real though.

 

During Leonard’s explanation, Barry gravitated to the couch where Lisa slept on unknowingly. He sat down at her feet and placed a hand against her shin for a little bit of comforting human contact. So much had happened last night. “I killed someone.”

 

“No,” Leonard said vehemently, “you saved me.”

 

They didn’t talk again.

 

Joe had gone into work while they slept to plead his case to Singh for the week off without being able to explain why he needed it off. He’d told Iris to come over, not trusting things enough to put Barry’s status into a text message or say it across a phone line.

 

He returned to the house with a couple of plastic bags full of breakfast food and got to cooking straight away. The four of them crowded around the kitchen table to eat and plan.

 

“I’m not even going to pretend that I understand what’s going on,” Joe began, “but you’ve got my help if you want it. You brought my son back to me.”

 

“Well, Detective,” Leonard said, planting his forearms of the table. “Mick and I have a plan…”


End file.
